Thoughts from my fundraiser and week at home.
home, fundraiser, new perspectives, and back skiing!
Wow! What a week it has been.
I love coming home to Buffalo in the fall, as it is a really nice time to recharge, reorganize, and get prepared for the next big training block. This past visit was even more special because I was able to connect, catch up and meet so many of my Buffalo supporters at my fundraiser. We of course missed our Canadian friends tremendously, but the event was so special to me for many reasons and on many different levels. I didn’t expect to be as moved as I was after speaking to so many of you and hearing your words of encouragement, but it really meant so much to me. The whole event went by in a blur, but it has had (and I suspect will continue to have) a lasting impact on me. It’s difficult to put into words exactly how the event made me feel but I would describe it as unbelievably encouraging, motivating and confidence building while at the same time giving me a sense of relief and calm.
One conversation I had that really stuck with me was with my mom’s Ski Patrol friend Geno telling me that I’ve already accomplished enough to be proud of and that it would be impossible for me to fail. I laughed off his comment initially thinking he was just being nice, but he continued to assure me that he meant it. I started to try and understand what he was saying.
Am I afraid of failure? Is that holding me back from confidently approaching each race? What do I really have to lose? Maybe my pride if I come in last at every race. But if I truly give it my best effort, then shouldn’t I be able to be proud of that?
I think a lot of these answers are tied to my nature of setting the bar extremely high for myself and continually raising it whenever I’m close to reaching it. I think setting the bar high can be very productive and I credit a lot of my success to this. But after my conversation with Geno, I began to think more about how this continual desire to keep setting the bar higher and higher might be affecting me. I am perpetually telling myself: “I need to do better, I need to be better”, and I think this has played into my fear of letting other people down, especially the people who have supported me. Moreover, what I realized is that this unattainable bar has made me approach some races and training sessions with self inflicted expectations and pressure.
During my first couple years racing FIS, I used to think during big races like US Nationals or Nor-Ams: “There are no expectations, so I really have nothing to lose, but this an awesome opportunity so there is a lot to be gained.”
Expectations are, in my case, entirely self inflicted and not productive if they are causing me to approach a race from a position of needing to prove myself instead of an opportunity that I get to prove myself. I’m working on figuring out this perspective in real time and also on how to balance holding myself to high standards and still being confident in myself.
It’s been very powerful for me to think about this the past week and reframe my mindset to realize not only that I shouldn’t be afraid of letting people down or failing, but rather that I should look at each race only as an awesome opportunity to give it everything I have and see what happens.
Of course this will be hard to remember on the inevitable bad days that accompany any season. Especially since I hate losing. But I have been working on my mental approach to skiing a lot recently, and I think this concept will be very impactful.
Mental training is obviously a huge part of the sport, and it’s been most helpful for me in the past to go over these worries or fears or doubts before the racing starts and they become limiting. My favorite resource is a podcast called Finding Mastery by Michael Gervaise who is a sports psychologist. But if anyone else has any sports psych recommendations, I would love to read or listen to more!
I’m already back on snow in Colorado at Copper Mountain and I am very excited for the last big training block before the race season. I have posted my World Cup Schedule on my website so you can follow along more easily. https://www.triciamangan.org/schedule